Dispersion-Enabled Shaping of Aluminum-Based MOF/Cellulose Composite Membranes for Autonomous Indoor Humidity...

Maintaining indoor relative humidity within a healthy and comfortable range is essential for human health and material preservation. However, it remains challenging under dynamically fluctuating environmental conditions. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) exhibit outstanding water sorption properties but are typically obtained as fine powders that suffer from poor processability, particle agglomeration, and limited scalability. Here, we developed a facile MOF-dispersion-based strategy to transform MOF powders into flexible, environmentally friendly humidity-regulating membranes by integrating them with plant-derived cellulose. By preformulating a stable MOF colloidal dispersion prior to composite assembly, particle agglomeration was effectively suppressed, and microstructural uniformity was achieved even at high MOF loadings. The optimized composite membrane exhibits a high specific surface area (747 m²/g), high equilibrium water uptake (0.345 g/g), and rapid, fully reversible sorption kinetics. In a simulated indoor environment, this composite membrane reduced the relative humidity fluctuation amplitude from 25.4% RH to 13.5% RH, while maintaining excellent cycling stability. This work not only demonstrates MOF dispersion processing as a generalizable materials engineering strategy but also provides an effective framework for developing scalable, high-performance, passive humidity-regulation materials suitable for indoor environmental control.